WORKPLACE SYNDICATE CLAIM HISTORIC CANADIAN LOTTO MAX JACKPOT

Last weekend the Canadian Lotto Max game reached $60 million, the highest ever jackpot to have been seen in the country, and one ticket won the entire top prize.

Until now, all that we knew was that the ticket had been sold in Ontario, the central Canadian province which features major cities Toronto and Ottawa, but today we can reveal that the ticket was purchased by a group of co-workers from a company in Markham, a small town just outside of Toronto, not far from Dufferin County where a pair of Lotto Max winners claimed their prize last month. The group of Canadian Black Book employees are 12 friends and colleagues who claimed their prize on Thursday at a press conference organised by Lotto Max officials, similar to that organized when a man from Hamilton Ontario claimed his Lotto Max prize five months after the draw date.

“We’re still living the dream right now,” said syndicate leader Dennis Cartier, adding that when he told his workmates about their good luck at work on Monday “there was screaming, yelling, and people on the table. It was chaos.”

Despite each group member taking home $5 million, many of them said that they have no plans to retire and that they will be back at work as usual on Monday. The co-workers all said that they enjoy their jobs, and that their Lotto Max winnings will allow them to enjoy themselves at work even more as they will no longer have to worry about money, just like some Hamilton police officers who won $5 million on the Lotto 6/49 earlier this year.

Canadian Black Book is a car evaluation company that deals with car prices and vehicle listings, and unsurprisingly some of the Lotto Max winners said that they would be spending some of their share on cars, with travel being the next item on most people’s lists. The group has been playing the lottery together for eight years, although this is the first time they won anything more than $90 but clearly the tradition paid off, as it did for John Pirie whose 35 year old tradition won him the Lotto 6/49 jackpot.

However, they don’t plan to stop playing, and they will be buying lottery tickets together for the foreseeable future. Mr Cartier told lottery officials that it was on Saturday at lunchtime that he realised the group had won big as he scanned the ticket at a gas station and was met with the words ‘Big Winner. $60 Million.’ “That’s when it all became very real,” he said.